Archives for August 2009

This is another card we made for stamp camp this month. These are hostess level one sets from the new catalog. They are both great silhouette sets. I love the artwork and the versatility. I fell in love with this card design when I saw it in the new catalog, so I tweaked it a little for our camp card. The flower images have been bleached.

Another great reason for owning the catalog, hundreds of great projects to copy or draw inspiration from. That’s why we call it the Catalog and Idea Book!

Here is another sneak peek from the upcoming Holiday Mini Catalog. This is a really fun set called Sweet Centers. All of the stamps are designed to work with our Sweet Treat Cups. These little treat cups with adhesive liners can be filled with candies or any other fun treats.

I copied the design for this stamp camp card, straight from the Mini Catalog with just a couple of little changes. Since I filled the cups with Good and Plenty candies, I thought this saying from the Smarty Pants set was perfect!

I finally got to play with my Medallion background stamp from the new catalog. As you can see, this stamp is not really meant to stay in the background. It makes quick and beautiful cards which can be used for many occasions.

This is a card that we made for stamp camp. You’ll recognize the Circle Rhinestone brad from the catalog, which really adds some elegant dazzle to the card. It needed something more to balance the card design, though. I thought about adding three of the smaller circle brads, but it seemed too much and I didn’t have enough on hand anyway. So what to do? That brings us to my new fave tip for all of those times when you don’t have just the right embellishment on hand. Re-color something you do have on hand!

In this case I mixed a drop of Crushed Curry Ink with some Crystal Effects and added a small drop on top of a rhinestone. I used this same technique on the pearls from the Pretties kit with the From the Crypt card in a previous post. The neat thing about Crystal Effects is that it usually will stay contained where you place it and will form a nice little mound. That is what it did here. The key is playing with it and seeing how much you need. Too much, results in a running or spreading effect. Just the right amount will mound up nicely. It is better to start with too little and add more if necessary. The CE will blend out if you have to add more. These kind of resemble a dew drop but have a little more depth and sparkle, very pretty.

You can also color the rhinestones and pearls using Sharpie or alcohol markers if you have the right colors on hand. Our dye based Stampin Write markers will also color the jewels. They need some drying time and sometimes two or three coats to get the desired color. I dab them with a soft tissue to remove excess ink before applying them to my projects.

These are all great ways to get that perfect added touch to your project

Here is a tutorial on how to do the Cracked Glass Technique from my previous post. For this card, I stamped and cut out the image. You could however, simply cover any watercolored image and get a dramatic effect.

Take the image you want to cover and smush (technical term) it down into a Versamark Pad. Versamark Ink is a clear watermark medium that remains wet for a while, so it is perfect for embossing. It has a little bit of a sticky consistency which really grabs embossing powder. You need a clear ink for this technique. Regular embossing ink would work well. Just don’t use a tinted one.

Make sure your image is completely covered with the Versamark.

Sprinkle Glassy Glaze Embossing Powder over the entire image. Glassy Glaze is a thick embossing powder. The granules are much larger than in the detailed powders. This powder is preferable, because you want a really thick coat for your final piece. It would take many more coats of a finer powder to achieve the same result. If you don’t have a glassy glaze any clear powder will work, with additional coats.

The next step is to heat the powder until it liquefies, leaving a shiny coating on your piece. You will need a heat gun specifically for this technique. We carry an excellent one in the catalog which is very high quality.

If you do not have a heat gun, you can sometimes emboss by heating your piece from the backside over a hot iron. I don’t suggest it with this technique though, because the very thick coat becomes messy and difficult to work with, and would probably leave a permanent mess on your iron.

I frequently am asked if you can use a blow dryer to emboss and unfortunately, you cannot. A blow dryer doesn’t get hot enough to melt the powder and the fan is too powerful and will blow all of your powder away.

I like to line a box with tin foil and place my piece down inside the box. The foil helps it heat more quickly and evenly and the piece is more contained inside the box.

After your powder has melted and cooled, repeat the previous steps 2-3 more times until you have a very thick coating of the shiny glaze.

Place your embossed images on a tray of some kind and put them in your freezer.

If you don’t have access to a freezer where you are crafting, you can still get the same effect. You just have to let the images cool and cure till the glaze is hard enough to crack. The freezer speeds up the process.

After about 10 minutes in the freezer, slightly bend or twist your piece to make several cracks. The key word here is slightly, too much exuberance in this step can make your glaze lift right off your image.

Refreeze if your piece needs to harden up in a specific area. It will become less brittle, the longer it is out of the freezer.

Your finished piece will take on the lovely look of a cracked piece of glass.

You can rub some dark ink into the crevices for a more antiqued look. The ink will also dull the shine a little, so experiment with this process to get the look you are happy with.

Here is the finished card.

I hope you get to play with this technique soon. It really adds the WOW, to your artwork.

Happy Stampin’

Belinda

I have to begin this post by saying that this card is much prettier in person than shown here! The leaves have been embossed using the cracked glass technique. They are very shiny and dimensional, but it is hard to get a picture that does them justice, especially with my limited photography skills.

Does the design layout look familiar? I used the same design layout as the previous From the Crypt card. Designing from a sketch can help you out of a creative slump or help you throw together a card in just a few minutes time. In theory, anyway; that is until you get the brilliant idea to stamp and cut out individual leaves and emboss each 3-4 times, but I digress. It was worth it though, no? I think it is a card worthy enough for a fabulous friend.

Speaking of FABULOUS! How about this gorgeous paper and new set from the upcoming Holiday Mini? The paper is called Autumn Meadow and it is yummy. I love every single design from this offering. I can’t wait for you to see the new mini coming your way in just a couple of weeks. It is 40 pages full of amazing new stuff!

Stampin Stuff

Stamps: Autumn Splendor and Oval All

Ink:Really Rust and Taken with Teal Classic Inks, Versamark Ink and Basic Brown permanent ink for aging the hardware and leaves

Well my big plans to stamp all week were interupted by an icky cold that has had everyone at my house sick. It seems like that happens every time I announce that I am going to stamp all week! It is a little difficult to be creative when you feel like poo, but yesterday I started feeling better and managed to put this together.

I just love this set! I love anything spooky anyway, but the artwork on this set is so nice.

The spiders are sitting on black sewing thread and the orange pearls are from the pretties kit and are colored with Crystal effects and classic ink. The spiders and main image are embossed with black detail embossing powder.

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The content in this blog is the sole responsibility of Belinda Tubby as an independent Stampin’ Up! demonstrator. Most of the products that I use here, I sell in my online store. The use of and content of classes, services or products offered is not endorsed by Stampin’ Up!
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